Hospital Can't Do Face Transplant for Chimp Maul Victim

Charla Nash's family is looking into the alternatives

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Charla Nash, 55, was attacked on Feb. 16 in Stamford. She will endure two years of surgery.

An Ohio hospital has told the family of a Connecticut woman mauled and blinded by a chimpanzee a year ago that it cannot perform a face and hand transplant for her, a family attorney said Monday.

Charla Nash's family is looking into alternative facilities after the Cleveland Clinic said it could not do both transplants, attorney Bill Monaco told The Associated Press on Monday. He said the transplants have to be done simultaneously and come from the same donor.

The 200-pound chimpanzee went berserk in February after its owner asked Nash to help lure it back into her house. The animal ripped off Nash's hands, nose, lips and eyelids.

Telephone messages left Monday with the hospital, which in 2008 performed the nation's first face transplant, were not immediately returned.

The clinic does not believe it has the capability to do the hand transplant surgery, Monaco said. He said it has not ruled out the possibility of some type of collaboration with another hospital.

Nash's family is researching the possibilities of the transplants at a few other hospitals in the United States and one in Canada, Monaco said.

"It will significantly improve her quality of life," Monaco said.

A face transplant would help Nash smell, breath and eat, while a hand transplant would help her be more independent, Monaco said. Nash has great difficulty eating and mostly uses a straw, he said.

Even if Nash was declared a candidate for the transplants, the surgery would not be done for years, Monaco said.

In April, dozens of doctors working in teams over 30 hours performed the world's first simultaneous partial-face and double-hand transplant at the Henri Mondor hospital in the Paris suburb of Creteil on a 30-year-old burn victim. The man died in June after suffering a heart attack during follow-up surgery.

Prosecutors said in December they would not charge the owner, Sandra Herold, because there was no evidence she knowingly disregarded any risk the animal posed.

Nash, who revealed her heavily disfigured face in November on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," has been at the Cleveland Clinic since soon after the attack. She expects to be discharged soon to an undetermined facility for rehabilitation, Monaco said.

Nash's family is suing Herold for $50 million and wants to sue the state for $150 million. Nash's family has said Herold was negligent and reckless for lacking the ability to control "a wild animal with violent propensities."

Herold's attorney has called the attack work-related — Nash worked for Herold and the animal played a promotional role in Herold's tow-truck business — and said her family's case should be treated like a workers' compensation claim. The strategy, if successful, would limit potential damages and insulate Herold from personal liability.

Test results showed that Travis had the anti-anxiety drug Xanax in his system.

The chimp, which was shot and killed by police, had also escaped in 2003 from his owner's car and led police on a chase for hours in downtown Stamford. No one was injured.